Dell improves bid for Quest

There have been two bidders slugging it out to win the bidding war for Quest. There has been the investment firm Insight Venture Partners, and a mystery bidder who has long been suspected to be the Tinman.

Yesterday the Tinman was outed by Reuters. Quest also disclosed it had received an improved bid of $27.50 per share in cash from “the mystery bidder”, but did not reveal it was Dell.

Dell initially planned to offer $23 to $26 per share to buy Quest, but it looks like this was not considered enough to match Insight.

Insight offered $2.17 billion or $25.75 a share.

Quest shares were worth $27.60 which means that investors expect a counter-offer to emerge.

Dell has said that software and services were the way forward as the hardware market drops.

It has already bought network security provider SonicWall and promised more such deals were in the pipeline.